Many people, especially students, ask us about the role that women and girls played in the iron industry. When a school group visits us, we’re about 99% sure that the question will come up. Usually, students want to know what role they played at Beckley Furnace.
The simple answer is “Well, they did not make iron” but it’s a big topic; certainly bigger than that answer; maybe a huge topic; and the answer isn’t easy.
We’re going to be exploring the topic over several posts, so please stay tuned if this is a question that is meaningful to you. If you ever think about the part gender plays in society today, then the answer to this question is probably going to be of interest to you.
Just what is that gray thing in the shed, up near the dam?
It wasn’t there last year!
Well, you’re right. We built the shelter for the gray thing over the winter, and we dedicated it this summer. And the “gray thing” is NOT a bomb (as one visitor suggested) or a jet engine (which it also resembles both functionally and in appearance). Instead, it’s a turbine. A water-power turbine that was used for the final decades of Beckley Furnace’s active life to power the hot blast. Actually, it’s one of two turbines at the Beckley site. Read about the other turbine here.
The turbine has an interesting story, and we’ll be telling you more about it later on, but here are a few items you might find interesting right now:
–It was a “Hercules-type” turbine, of unknown manufacturer, probably installed when the dam was rebuilt in the 1870s.
–While it looks pretty massive on the display rack, it was considered a powerhouse for its day, generating (we think) about 80 hp. (A nice thing about turbines — they can generate lots of power even when the water input is reduced due to drought.)
–This turbine had spend nearly 90 years buried in the mud in the pit where it operated. It was evidently too heavy to be removed for scrap metal during the Second World War.
–After getting expert advice about how to conserve this rarity, we concluded that in order to preserve the interior we needed to cut a hole in the side. Fortunately, that gives you a good view of the inner workings of the device.
–Yes, that wooden thing at the lower end of the turbine is just what it looks like: a washer. It’s made of a tropical wood called lignum vitae that withstands the kinds of forces this turbine exerted, and to do it in water, too.
Actually, several different techniques have existed for making iron over the centuries. We’ll go into more detail about some of the others in a future post, but for the time being, let’s just consider how it was done at Beckley.
Beckley was a hot blast furnace — which means that (1) it was a blast furnace instead of a forge or another process, and (2) the blast of air that was forced into the iron mix was heated first. (It’s that blast of air that was forced into the hot iron mix that gave its name to the blast furnace, by the way.)
But let’s back up a little:
What were the ingredients?
The ingredients of iron here at Beckley were:
1. Iron ore (in this case, from the Upper Housatonic area)
2. Charcoal (initially made from trees in the general area, but as demand grew, from as far away as Vermont)
3. Limestone (there are quarries near Beckley — the closest is about a mile down Lower Road)
What was the process?
The process of making iron, once a hot fire was in place in the furnace, involved workers pushing wheelbarrows of iron ore, charcoal, and limestone across a bridge from the charging wall (you can see it on the other side of Lower Road), and dumping them into the top of the furnace.
At the same time, water power from the dam was driving rudimentary air compressors called “pumping tubs” that blew air into a large heating unit called a stove, and from there, blew the hot air into the hearth of the furnace.
The hot air was supplemented by hot gasses from the furnace, largely carbon monoxide, that were piped from the top of the furnace down to mix with the hot air from outside to be blown back into the liquid iron mix.
When a fair amount of liquid iron had accumulated in the bottom of the hearth, a two step process was started. (1) Some of the liquid slag (waste material from the iron making process) was drawn off to solidify into sheets on the floor of the casting shed (it was then broken up with sledge hammers and removed), and then (2) the liquid iron was tapped to flow out into iron molds pressed into the sand of the casting shed floor.
The ingots of iron were (and are) called pigs (we’ll have another post about why they’re called pigs). Once they cooled and solidified, they were carried out of the casting shed and stacked.
And, iron had been made a Beckley Furnace! The process went on over and over, day and night, seven days a week, as long as the furnace was “in blast” (which means in operation).
Beckley Furnace has a close relationship with Housatonic Heritage, the umbrella organization that represents the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area.
We’re proud to publish the Iron Heritage Trail map and brochure! It’s free, available at Beckley Furnace, at any area Historical Society, at most libraries, and at many hotels, inns, and restaurants in our area. We are also proud that Beckley Furnace is the centerpiece of this set of tours around our area.
The Iron Heritage Trail makes it easy to see important elements of our industrial and social history via nine separate suggested tours. Each tour is a reasonable objective for a morning or afternoon, and each also provides opportunities for more study.
Here are the tours suggested in the brochure:
Tour I: Beckley Furnace (that’s us!!). No driving in this tour; we believe there’s enough at Beckley to keep nearly anyone interested and involved for a couple of hours.
Tour II: Beckley Furnace to Norfolk and Colebrook, CT
Tour III: Beckley Furnace to North Canaan, Falls Village, and Amesville, CT.
Tour IV: Salisbury, Mount Riga, and Lakeville
Tour V: Lime Rock to Sharon
Tour VI: Sharon, Cornwall, Kent, and Roxbury, CT
Tour VII: Amenia, NY to Clove Valley Ironworks, Beekman, NY
Tour VIII: Millerton, NY; Copake, NY; Chatham, NY
Tour IX: North Canaan, CT to Lanesborough, MA
The brochure also includes convenient articles about the discovery of the so-called Salisbury Ore, the blast furnaces of the Salisbury Iron District, and the natural local resources that made the Upper Housatonic valley area a natural one for the production of iron.
So you can spot it among all the other brochures vying for your attention, here’s what it looks like:
You and other people might think that the iron industry was only in the United States. But, it had to of come from somewhere right?
Where else was the iron industry?
-An iron blade was found in an Egyptian pyramid.
-By 5 B.C. there were small blast furnaces in China
-In Germany blast furnaces date to the 14th century
-In Spain forges date to the 8th century
-The Cranberry Bogs in Massachusetts was where they dug up bog Iron.
-The iron furnace in Kent, CT gave its’ name to the Kent Furnace in Kent, Ct.
-Sheffeild, England was where they invented crucible steel.
See? The iron industry most likely came here from Europe and Asia which was where it started.
This is America, not Europe!
The most likely reason as to why the iron industry started here was that the people that came to America from Europe brought with them ideas. One of these ideas probably was to start iron furnaces in the original colonies. If you’ve seen our ABOUT page, you’ll remember that John Adam Beckley originally set up the many Beckley Furnaces. Other people may have been inspired by him, or had already had other furnaces/forges which is how there were so many then and how there are still some around today.
Beckley Furnace is staffed by knowledgeable personnel on Saturday mornings during the summer months, when we see most of our visitors.
We try to ensure that there will be at least one member of the Friends of Beckley Furnace board of directors — and, when possible, two or more — on site at these times. This helps us keep in close contact with our visitors, and also provides our visitors with direct contact with experts in various aspects of the historic operation of the Salisbury Iron industry.
The table below provides the Saturday mornings when we will be staffed in 2014 and the names of the directors who will be on site that day.
FOBF SATURDAY DUTY ROSTER 2014
REVISED AS OF REQUESTS SUBMITTED BY MAY 15
Dick Paddock and will be present each Saturday; Intern ( and board member) Chris Allyn will be present each Saturday through August 23; Ed Kirby will be part time most Saturdays. From September 6 through October 11 staffing will be announced on our Facebook page when available.
Cliff Waldo will act as a substitute if something comes up on your scheduled Saturday.
Clara M. Beckley was the granddaughter of John Adam Beckley and her papers are some of the only works that may exist from the time of the iron industry relating to it.
Short Biography
A native of New York, Clara’s main research concern was her family’s genealogy and and the development of her grandfather’s iron business in New England. She was a librarian, genealogist, and a historian. Her date of birth was January 5, 1880 and she died sometime after 1958.
The Papers
The Clara Beckley Papers are divided into to two series, the first containing the her genealogical research and the second containing the documents relate to the day-to-day business transactions of the Beckley furnaces
*The papers are part of the Connecticut Historical Society’s collection. For more information go to our References page.*
This website began as a portion of a Girl Scout Silver Award Project undertaken in 2013 by two then-seventh grade girls named Eleanore and Helen.
The project began when they visited Beckley Furnace the summer before they entered seventh grade. They were fascinated by Beckley Furnace, and they thought that other people would be as well. The Friends of Beckley Furnace, the not-for-profit organization that restored, maintains, and interprets Beckley Furnace, paid attention. The interests of the girls and the interest of the Friends coincided perfectly; for years the Friends of Beckley Furnace have been trying to better inform people about Beckley Furnace and also about the iron industry in general.
While the girls originally proposed create a smartphone app to make the old Beckley website more portable and accessible, for a variety of reasons, including time constraints and the cost of building an Apple app as well as an Android app and maintaining them, the idea of creating a new website that would be as usable on mobile devices as on laptops and desktop computers emerged as a better alternative.
The girls started with the original Beckley Furnace website, and from there they created an all new website based in WordPress and providing both the desired mobile capability and the capability of building educational and research resources that would be helpful to teachers, students, researchers — as well ordinary people who simply want to learn more about Beckley Furnace and the historical iron industry of the Upper Housatonic Valley.
The project quickly became more than “just a Girl Scout project.” Based in part on the girls’ vision and their diligence, the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area undertook, with the aid of CT Humanities, a planning study about use of local history landmarks in teaching social studies (with Beckley Furnace as a case example). Who knows where it will all lead!
The Girl Scout project that Eleanore and Helen conceived in 2013 has mushroomed to become a regional effort, with state and national support and participation — and we have only begun!
